11,06.23

Don’t Try This At Home

"Research has shown that when we don't have first-hand experience with an issue,
we craft our understandings based on media representations."

—Meghan SobelLinks to an external site.,
Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Regis University

In media, the cheating partner is usually described as either a cake-eater or a woefully unappreciated dream spouse who has an affair to escape boredom—while the betrayed partners barely exist and are ejected from the plot by divorce or death. The truth of infidelity is so much more complex and painfully interesting, affairs are so un-unique that their elements contain an almost universal pathology.

On the day of our wedding, I could not have fathomed the implosion that occurred in our marriage, no one imagines these things on their wedding day—even though the foreshadowing is embedded in our traditional wedding vows. For better or worse, in sickness and in health... But by the time I confirmed my husband’s affair, I was not shocked. It had been clear to me for well over 2 years that he was not emotionally healthy. He was caught in grief after being pulled backward into unhealed childhood trauma, he was unhappy at work, and our son had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy after a sudden onslaught of terrifying seizures. He was not okay, I was not okay.

I watched the bright light that was once us, fade into something barely visible. He wasn’t trying and I was tired of doing it all by myself. Every attempt I made to set us on a different path was met with cruel rejection. My husband was withdrawing, and he was beginning to direct his anger toward me and our children. I started playing out the natural progression of the path we were on and for the first time could see a possibility of divorce on the horizon. I started imagining what that last straw might be, defining where my own w breaking point was. I found that breaking point in his DMs just a few days after his birthday. Though I wasn’t ready for it to end, our marriage was over, the vows were broken. My husband had been body snatched and replaced with a creature that looked exactly like his dad, and my dad. I had to decide what I was going to do with the rest of my life, and I couldn’t think with him around, so he left to stay with his cousin.

For the first two days, I mostly sat huddled on the couch in stunned silence. I got up every few hours to care for my children and cue up more Netflix. I was disassociated, completely numbed out, and “came to” when my five-year-old daughter brought me a slice of cold pizza in an attempt to feed me. My children were trying to take care of me. I snapped out of the shock and started to face the decisions that needed to be made. At first, it seemed like my only options were to get divorced, or rug-sweep the whole thing and stay married. It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen. Neither option sounded right at this time.

Looking back, if I had stable parents to run to, I probably would have left. If the pandemic hadn’t begun just a couple of months later—I probably would have left a couple of months later. To be even more brutally honest, the woman I am today definitely would have left. But the person I was at that time could not stop thinking about the fact that my husband was sick. His unhealthy behavior was completely out of sync with the person he had shown me for so much of our then 12-year relationship. The people he cheated on me with were not healthy people either, each of them was a little shit show unto themselves. I imagined that instead of cheating, it was heroin—it easily could have been. In this context, I realized I did not need to make up my mind about my whole life, or our marriage right now. I chose a third option called “I’m not leaving right now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not leaving.” When Jay came home I handed him my wedding rings, and let him know that I’d be praying for God to bring me the partner I knew deserved. Maybe someday he could be that person, but for now, my main concern was that we get healthy and take care better care of our children.

This third option gave both of us time to get healthy before making big life choices that would affect our kids. I chose to hold him accountable for his decisions and to hold myself accountable for my own healing. We chose to give our kids a chance at having two healthy parents by going into individual therapy, and couples therapy. We chose to give breaking some cycles a chance. I could also decide to end the marriage legally, at strike out on my own at any point if that was what felt healthiest.

In couples therapy, we learned that infidelity is most often a narcissistic form of avoidance and escapism. It is an option chosen by people who aren’t quite ready for suicide but can’t stand looking at the shadow self that has taken over their lives. The term narcissism is used almost literally, as the object of the affair is typically a person who is easily charmed into holding up a favorable reflection of the cheater. They are the pool that offers an escape from the shadow, and that escape is the true goal of the affair. In order to get healthy, Jay had to face his shadow. He had to heal his wounds and work through an enormous amount of shame and anger toward himself in order to become a person worthy of trust, and capable of providing security again.

The betrayed partner is rarely the main character in books, or on-screen, instead the hurt of the betrayed partner finds its home in music and poetry. I listened to Lemonade A LOT during this time. Beyonce’s eulogy to herself is the most real thing I’ve ever heard on the topic of this kind of betrayal. When you decide to love a person for life, and they emotionally abuse and abandon you—the person you thought you going to be forever dies. I had to grieve the person I was before. In the first week of discovery, I experienced intense pain in my chest, it was so acute that I ended up in the emergency room hooked up to an EKG machine. The tech monitored me for an hour, looked at the printout, and said “Your heart is okay.” I thought “No, it’s broken.”

In my own therapy journey, I learned that my chest pain, shortness of breath, headaches, shaking, and anxiety attacks were PTSD. For my nervous system, my husband had gone from being a source of safety and security to becoming the monster under the bed. I felt like I had also betrayed myself and acted irresponsibly for loving him so blindly before. The ways I was “tricked” made me feel like a complete idiot. I questioned whether I was a reliable source of any kind of knowledge or guidance—which was compounded by the fact that I am a mother and an educator—roles in which I am constantly relied upon for knowledge and guidance. How was I supposed to guide my children with wisdom, or impart knowledge to my students when I had willingly chosen to be in a relationship with a person who ended up repeating my childhood trauma? I had to re-imagine myself as a Genius of Heart for taking that first big leap in love, and for choosing mutual healing when that love was broken. I stepped outside of myself and saw that while I was pouring out the big love my partner was not receiving it or reciprocating it—and this was true across all of his relationships which included our children, and everyone else who loved him and expressed worry for his state. There I found an enormous well of compassion and grief for him. You could have the world in the palm of your hands. You still might drop it.

11.10.23

Forgiveness

I want to preface this text with an acknowledgement of how problematic the teaching of the concept of forgiveness often is in many religions and ideologies. In the Christian Church I was taught that forgiveness was understood as a “gift” that we must give to those who harm us out of obedience to God. Any refusal to comply meant condemning your soul to an eternity in hell. I don’t believe that. I believe forgiveness is a gift from God for people, not the other way around. I do not believe we should rush into forgiveness out of fear of hell—that is not true forgiveness—that is spiritual bypassing AKA rug-sweeping. Those who have been harmed, deserve time to understand how forgiveness can be healing for them.

Forgiveness does not mean what was done is “okay,” or will be forgotten. It does not mean that the transgressor is entitled to relationship, proximity, or anything else from the transgressed. Forgiveness breaks the shackles that tie survivor to perpetrator. I release myself, and you are released as a result. Forgiveness allows us to reclaim our God-given entitlement to living a full life as a whole being.

11.13.23

Abuse

One of the most shocking things I learned in therapy is that abusers do not know they are abusive. Abuse is a subconscious act, a behavior that meets a need that the nervous system is screaming out for. In reflecting on this knowledge, I thought of the story The Thing. In the horror novel/ movie, the Thing is a parasite that infects animals and people as a way of gaining access to its victims, the Thing moves from person to person, perpetuating harm. It sews mistrust and chaos to the point that innocent people, kill innocent people, in an attempt to preserve their own lives. The Thing is unconscious abuse. It could be anyone, it could be me.

Without doing the work, the adaptations we made to survive childhood, become the malfunction of our adulthood. Sometimes those malfunctions amount to abuse of the self, and of others. I started a rigorous self-inventory, looking at how I have handled conflict in the past, and reflecting on how I have reacted when I am triggered, or anxious. I traced those behaviors back to childhood moments when I was forced to perform the role of “everything is great” in public spaces, by 40 I was a master performer. In therapy, I learned to call out this behavior when I saw it happening in myself. If I have to show up in a situation as “great” at a time when I am not feeling 100% on the inside, I’m honest about it. I open up lectures and presentations with a vulnerability statement, I want people to know that they aren’t alone. I want people to have empathy for the person right next to them, and to remember that even often people who seem great, could be fighting an invisible battle. Just say it out loud, see how it feels.

11.15.23

Acts of Love

• He noticed when I got a haircut.

• He surprised me by showing up at my work at the end of my shift to see if we could hang out.

• On my birthday, he arrived at my house with a bouquet of flowers he had assembled himself from flowers he picked out at a flower market.

• He created iPod playlists for me and brought Cheez-Its and Tecate to our late-night design studio sessions.

• Once, he was late for one of our dates because he had spent the whole day searching record stores for Etta James’ cover of “My Funny Valentine” to bring me as a gift. When he couldn’t find it, he made a mini record using a CD he burned and created a collaged album cover for it.

• He cooked home-cooked dinners for me.

• Even when we had no money, he found ways to flip/sell stuff to give me something special. I still have my white headphones.

• I loved that I couldn’t hide from him; I am really good at hiding my hard thoughts or feelings from people. With Jay, I could have one tiny sad thought, and he would notice it immediately.

• He was my partner in crime.

• He said, "I love you," for the first time over a cold plate of Chinese noodles and fried chicken after a weekend of beach camping and record shopping.

• He would snuggle, like super snuggle, legs and arms all tangled up in snuggle.

• He would always text me or call me to say goodnight.

• He rubs his feet together as he is falling asleep. The first time he slept over and rubbed his feet together, I got so excited. I also rub my feet together when I fall asleep.

• He cried in front of me and talked to me about his hard feelings.

• We think the same things at the same time. Once, we even had the same dream.

• He was down to spend the whole day in the hotel room, in bed, watching Blue Planet while on vacation.

• When the financial market collapsed, and I lost my job, he asked me to move in with him and promised it wasn’t just because my financial situation was terrible.

• He would look at me with a smile on his face while I rambled and then say he liked listening to me.

• He proposed to me on my birthday, in the middle of a crosswalk in Downtown LA. When I laughed and told him he wasn’t allowed to propose without a ring, he said, “Ok! I just want you to know that I want to marry you. Don’t go anywhere!” He proposed again later, with a ring, in the same spot.

• He moved to San Francisco with me when I landed a design fellowship at Chronicle Books.

• He came to all of my prenatal doctor’s visits when we were pregnant with Sofia. The first time we saw her on the sonogram, she jumped inside her little bubble, and he screamed with joy so loud that it scared the tech, and then made her laugh.

• He would drive me to work and pick me up at the end of the day.

• Our lives before we met are a mirror image. We both come from young parents, fathers who are equal parts charming and crazy, and mothers who are equal parts loving and sad. We both had the same wooden crying Buddha statue in our teenage bedroom. For both of us, creativity was a coping skill.

• He defended me once when a drunk jerk said something mean to me on the street. The other guy looked terrified of him. I finally felt safe in the world.

• He made me a part of his family, and they became as close to me as my own family.

• He’s always been down to do the hard work of things. In the places we lived together, he would patch holes, paint walls, and install new floors.

• He took such good care of me after Sofia was born. He would bring me snacks and water when she was cluster feeding.

• He wasn’t sexist about domestic life; we both changed diapers, cooked meals, folded laundry and did the dishes.

Wooing The Subconscious